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Evangelists to unveil new website

BALTIMORE (BP) -- Unveiling a new website and discussing the role of evangelists in 21st-century America will be among the agenda items when the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists gathers around the theme "Answering His Call" June 6-8 in Baltimore.

"We want Southern Baptist evangelists to have their finger on the pulse of the culture so that we can be as relevant and effective as possible in impacting the culture with the Gospel," COSBE President Eric Ramsey said.

The meeting will begin with a retreat Friday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Hilton Baltimore Holiday Ballroom. It will be a time of evangelists "connecting with their support system" and "connecting with people who get who they are and get what they do," said Ramsey, president of Tom Cox World Ministries in Mountainburg, Ark.

Evangelists will participate in Crossover June 7, with COSBE members partnering with local churches in ministries ranging from music to ventriloquism to traditional personal witnessing. While evangelists have long participated in Southern Baptists' annual pre-convention evangelistic blitz, this year they will do so in conjunction with the North American Mission Board's Send: Baltimore strategy.

A banquet Saturday evening back at the Hilton Baltimore will include a keynote address by Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, and two inductions to COSBE's Hall of Faith. A new home for the Hall of Faith exhibit will also be announced.

Inductions to the Hall of Faith are "never a celebration of the individuals. It's honoring those individuals, but it's a celebration of being able as a believer to be involved in what God does. Our hope is that the Southern Baptist Evangelists' Hall of Faith will be utilized to call out the called, those whom God is calling to the office of the evangelist."

COSBE will host its Sunday morning worship service from 9 to 11:30 in the Hilton's Holiday Ballroom. Speakers had not been announced at press time.

The COSBE gathering will conclude with a business meeting at 2 p.m. Sunday, when the group will unveil its new website, elect officers and announce changes in the process by which its evangelists relate to each other and churches.

The "Answer His Call" theme references God's call to carry out the office of evangelist individually and as a part of Christ's body, Ramsey said.

"We believe that a big part of the role of an evangelist is not just to evangelize," he said, "but to equip the church in evangelism and to help God's people live out the call of making Christ known."

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